Making guests feel comfortable during their stay is a critical part of a guests' overall experience. Whether they're traveling for business or pleasure, hoteliers to create the right environment—from the interior to the exterior—to satisfy guests' expectations and make them feel at home. For example, business travelers are looking for clean and efficient features, while vacationers are looking for features that will help them unwind and relax. READ MORE

With the growing presence of UGC, consumers have more information than ever before when they are making a hotel room purchase. The question is: how do consumers use all this information, with price, to establish value and ultimately make a purchase decision? Understanding this, particularly across different segments of guests, will help hotels make better pricing and positioning decisions. The unmanaged business traveler represents a large and very valuable segment for hotels. This group of frequent travelers is potentially highly influenced by their loyalty affiliation. Does their loyalty change their reaction to price and UGC? READ MORE

There are roughly 80 million millennials in the United States, and each year they spend approximately $600 billion. Clearly, marketers have recognized this group and are scrambling to reach out to them, connect in a relevant way and convince them of brand relevancy. Some are missing a big opportunity for success, however, because they are operating under the false assumption that all millennials belong in the same gigantic group. There is more than meets the untrained eye here, and properly targeting millennials is a multi-faceted, complicated effort. If you're like me, you are inundated with articles, webinars and conferences READ MORE

Globally the influence of Millennials on travel and on marketing has been profound. In the US, Millennials are as large a generation cohort as Baby Boomers . In China, they are a smaller generation numerically thanks to the one child policy. But as the first generation to benefit from China's astonishing economic growth, 80s children (as they are known) are a wealthy and high-consuming group. The word Millennial has almost become synonymous with youth. But that is about to change. READ MORE

A lot has been said and written about the "millennial traveler" and how "different" their travel and hotel needs are. How connected and ambitious they are, the young movers and the shakers in the modern business world. In fact, nearly every major hotel brand believes millennial travelers are seeking new places to stay when traveling, new experiences, new ways to connect, new ways to stay healthy while on the road and so on. New millennial brands continue to launch onto the scene. Brands like Marriott's Moxy, Hilton's TRU, Starwood's Aloft and Hyatt's Centric all seeking to be positioned to grab the growing share of millennial traveler. READ MORE